c. 2007 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ Twenty-one years ago this month, Pope John Paul II met in Assisi, Italy, with more than 150 leaders of different religions to pray for peace. Images of the white-robed pontiff worshipping in the Basilica of St. Francis alongside colorfully garbed Tibetan Buddhists, Japanese Shintoists and representatives of traditional African and American faiths captivated millions around the world.

Not everyone, however, was pleased, including the man who would one day succeed John Paul.

“This cannot be the model,” said Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), who was then head of the Roman Catholic Church’s highest doctrinal body, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Ratzinger later wrote that it was “indisputable that the Assisi meetings, especially in 1986, were misinterpreted by many people.”

Ratzinger feared that such displays, however well-intentioned, could promote the relativistic idea that all religions are equally true, or that all faiths could be combined in a single syncretic blend.

This Sunday (Oct. 21), Benedict will attend the opening day of the International Meeting for Peace in Naples, Italy. Organized by a Catholic lay group, the Community of Sant’Egidio, it is the latest in an annual series of events intended to sustain the “spirit of Assisi.”

The pope will offer an ecumenical Mass in Naples’ main piazza, then have lunch with some 200 religious leaders, including the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, the Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, the chief rabbi of Israel and the Muslim rector of Al-Azhar University in Egypt.

To see the one-time critic of the Assisi gathering give his blessing to this event might seem evidence of a dramatic conversion. And recent events do suggest that Benedict recognizes the increasing urgency of inter-religious relations, especially in the cause of peace.

But Sunday’s event in Naples also reflects Benedict’s particular approach to dialogue with other faiths, a style markedly more cautious than that of his predecessor.

The organizers of the gathering stress that there is not _ and never has been _ anything in the spirit of Assisi that promotes relativism or syncretism. “We are not offering a marmalade of religions,” said Mario Marazziti, the co-founder of Sant’Egidio.

Indeed, John Paul himself, at the 1986 gathering, noted that it did “not imply any intention of seeking a religious consensus … (nor) a concession to relativism in religious beliefs.” Yet the sight of Muslims and Jews _ to say nothing of animists and other polytheists _ praying alongside Christians in a Catholic church lent itself to other interpretations.

Ever since the 1986 gathering, Marazziti notes, organizers have arranged for representatives of different faiths to pray in separate locations _ a specification that is prominently noted in this year’s program.

Last September, to mark the 20th anniversary of the first Assisi event, the meeting was again held in Assisi. Benedict sent a letter of support, but warned against any seeming endorsement of relativism.

Events since then have underscored the importance of inter-religious relations for the Vatican. Two weeks after he sent the letter to Assisi, Benedict angered Muslims with a speech in Regensburg, Germany, in which he quoted a medieval Christian emperor describing the teachings of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman” and “spread by the sword.”

Benedict later responded by expressing his “regrets” and held a special meeting with representatives of Muslim nations. Then, on a visit to Turkey in December, the pope surprised many by praying alongside Istanbul’s chief Imam in the city’s Blue Mosque. The incident suggested that the pope may have adopted a more relaxed attitude to what he calls “multi-religious” prayer.

The latest potential impetus to better relations between Catholicism and Islam came last week (Oct. 13) when 138 Muslim scholars and clerics published an open letter seeking better relations with the Christian world. Two of the document’s authors complained that the Catholic Church has resisted theological dialogue with Muslims, limiting inter-religious relations to the diplomatic sphere.

The roundtable discussions being held in Naples on Sunday will offer an opportunity for such dialogue, though Benedict himself, who will leave before the official beginning of the meeting, will not take part in them.

Nor will Benedict share in the prayers for peace, which will not take place until Wednesday (Oct. 24). As for the Mass that he will offer on Sunday, the only religious leaders who have been formally invited are other Christians.

So if the pope offers any prayers in the presence of non-Christian representatives this weekend, it will be just before their meal together, and presumably in silence.

KRE/RB END ROCCA850 words